MAYOR TOLD TO BACK OFFThe judge of Ronda’s number three court is losing patience with the town’s mayor Antonio Marín ordering him to back off with his consistent pleas for the case against him to be filed.
The mayor has been implicated along with some of his councillors in authorising the construction of an agricultural building, deemed illegal, in the Hoya del Tajo. This lies on the land below the Tajo gorge and is catalogued as having special environmental protection.
Antonio Marín has asked the court on different occasions for the case against him to be kicked out and filed. This had led to the judge finally requesting him to desist from this action.
It was Ecologistas en Acción that alerted the Policía Autonómica in 2006to the existence of the building and the officers in due course sent the results of its investigation to the Málaga prosecutor. It was the prosecutor who then asked the Ronda court to open an investigation as the construction of the farm unit is deemed to have broken the planning law in a protected zone.
The mayor appeared before the court at the end of last year. He insisted that he had nothing to do with the illegal construction arguing it was a matter for town hall officials and the then councillor for public works – the Partido Popular’s José Herrera. At that time the PP was in coalition with the mayor’s then Partido Andalucista although he now sits as non-aligned.
Actually the case of the farm building is the tip of a town planning investigation in which the courts and prosecutors are looking at eleven constructions that appear to have been erected illegally. In addition Marín is fighting other battles in the courts because of his handling of the planned controversial Los Merinos golf, residential and hotel complex.
LATER RATHER THAN SOONER
The regional government has stated that the planned toll motorway linking Ronda with San Pedro de Alcántara and the wider Costa del Sol will happen – but it has no idea when.
The news, which is hardly news, was broken by the Málaga delegate of public works, Dolores Fernández, when she visited Ronda last week to see the progress in the project to building new access roads in to the town.
It was in November 2007 that the regional government’s former minister for public works, Concepción Gutiérrez, had visited Ronda and presented the project for the toll motorway to the mayor and his counterparts in the Serranía. The road was to be backed with a 350 – 400 million euros investment slashing travel times from 50 to 20 minutes. It would also eliminate the current dangerous road with 365 bends over its 45 kilometre length for a high speed dual carriageway.
The minister also promised that the road would be operational by 2012. That clearly will not be the case and indeed there is no guarantee works will even have started by then – if they start at all. All Fernández would say is that the project was undergoing a viability study.
As to the new access roads in to Ronda they are part of a 14 million euros scheme funded by the Andalucía government. However Ecologistas en Acción are angry that thousands of trees, largely pines, have been removed from land that in the local development plan is deemed as green zones. However Fernández insisted that once the works were complete 150,000 euros would be spent on planting 14,000 trees native to the area and where green zones had been lost they would be replaced with others.
MARCHING ON
The new local development plan (PGOU) for Ronda has been distributed to the various political parties in the municipality to study. It is expected to be provisionally passed in early March after which it will go on public display. It will allow the construction of 4,700 new houses, will generate 255 million euros in economic activity and create 7,000 jobs directly and indirectly.
PP UNITED
The Partido Popular was the power behind mayor Antonio Marín’s Ronda throne whilst in coalition with the Partido Andalucista. Then Marín broke the accord and the PP slipped in to chaos. Now provincial president Elías Bendodo has expressed his satisfaction the party has reunited behind its spokesperson on the council Maripaz Fernández who will be its candidate for mayor at the next elections.
COLLAPSED CASE
A building on the corner of the calle La Bola and Los Remedios collapsed in September 2004 whilst works were being carried out creating Ronda’s open commercial centre. A shoe shop, chemists and clothes outlet brought a case against the town hall and its architect claiming damages. That was rejected by a local judge but now the provincial court has re-opened the investigation.
MORE JOBLESS
After a fall in December the number of unemployed in Ronda has risen again. The total increased by 158 in January bringing it to 4,157. Women have been hardest hit with113 of that total. Indeed women account for 2,173 of the jobless in the municipality whilst men total 1,984. Last year saw a stead increase with dips in May, June, July and December.
FRIDGE DUMP
Nearly 5,000 people used the Punto Limpio in Ronda in 2009 just 190 less than the previous year. None-the-less the recycling centre in La Dehesa is proving very popular with residents of the town and the wider Serranía. People dumped fridges weighing 26,660 kilos plus 73,800 litres of used oil, 31,320 kilos of plastics - textiles and 123,360 kilos of building waste.
HAM THEFT
A sign of our hungry times or just an opportunist thief? The owners of the Bar La Farola in central Ronda had a nasty surprise last week. A jamón Serrano worth 200 euros was on its stand on the bar just inside the door where it was used for tapas. Suddenly at around 21.00 a man rushed in, grabbed the ham then fled.
